A Price On Your Head
by DemolitionLvr
Summary: A hit has been put out on the Titans and every crook in town wants the pay off. The Titans don't know they're in danger. Will an interest in one Titan make an infamous thief do something... Altruistic? RaeRedX TWOSHOT COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The characters used herein are owned by DC and WB, not me, and I am using them for entertainment purposes only, not profit.

**A/N: I promised I'd be back. This is a chapter I've had lying in wait for a few weeks now. I've gradually gone over and over it, little revisions here and there. I like the way it came out. It's my first time writing about Red X, so I hope you like it.**

* * *

**A Price On Your Head, Chapter 1**

"Sir, we have just received word that the latest shipment was intercepted and all the men at the docks were arrested."

A well built man in his late forties, wearing a charcoal suit, sat in a leather chair behind a solid wood desk. He leaned forward, hands clenched and shaking with anger on top of some papers, and growled at his employee, "That's the third time in a row. Who busted my delivery _this _time?"

The hired muscle hesitated when faced with the question. Impatiently, his boss tilted his head to prompt him on. Finally, he answered, "The Teen Titans, Mr Dimagio."

Nicola Dimagio, head of the largest crime syndicate in California, slammed his meaty fist on his desk. He did not fail to notice the slight jump of his employee, whose name he would never bother to remember. With the appearance of calmness, Dimagio stood from his chair, buttoned the dark jacket of his suit slowly, and looked thoughtfully out the window of his office to the nightlife on the preppy uptown streets of Jump City.

He never regretted that he based his organization, his family, in Jump until a certain group of bratty do-gooders came to town, but now he did quite often. Despite his doubts, he would never leave this City. Three generations of his family had ruled this entire West coast's underworld from here, and he wouldn't stop that for anything, even Batman's prodigy and his super-powered lackeys. They couldn't drive him out, oh no. This city belonged to him.

"I want the Teen Titans dead," he declared.

"Excuse me, sir?" the other man asked.

Dimagio sighed in impatience at the incompetence. "I want the Titans dead. Spread the word. A million dollars to anyone who can bring me the dead body of a Titan. Ten to anyone who brings all five."

That ought to settle that. Even a group of superheroes can't survive forever when a whole city is trying to kill them. Especially if they're caught by surprise. Dimagio smiled smugly to himself. This pain in his side would be gone by the end of the week, and then he would have free reign to rule his streets once more.

He wondered why he hadn't thought of this before.

* * *

Red X jumped out of an open hatch and landed smoothly on the roof of the museum. There was no other way he ever landed, really. Sometimes his own skill amazed him, and he just felt in his gut he was born to be a master thief.

Checking the pocket that held the most important item from the night's heist, he found the necklace safe and secure. That one priceless antique would make him enough money to lay low for a while.

What a laugh. As if he would stop. He stole for the fun of foiling the police, the satisfaction of antagonizing the Titans, and the rush of triumph; he had no notions of relenting on his assault on typical hero-villain boundaries.

A relatively brief run across some rooftops and a stealthy, lithe climb down a rusty old fire escape, and he reached the meeting point. Two painfully suspicious-looking men in gray trench coats, one wiry with a hood covering his head, the other stockier and with more defined muscles, awaited him. When he discreetly drew their attention to his position in the shadows, they strolled with a casual, unconcerned gait in his direction. Without stopping as they passed each other, the two inconspicuous parties traded, a necklace for a stuffed Manila envelope.

Once he had a hand on the envelope, he turned to face his buyers. He didn't know who they were exactly, but figured they, like most of his buyers, would go on to resell the jewel in the Black Market. Red X provided the goods for the middlemen, but had no interest in personally getting involved in the Market. Too many police raids for his comfort.

Looking down quickly, he ascertained that the envelope contained his whole fee. Satisfied, he made a sarcastic tipping-the-hat motion, and made to walk out of sight.

He was stopped by something that had never happened on the night of an exchange: the buyer started talking.

"Have you heard about the hit out on the Teen Titans?" the hooded man asked quietly, just audible across the distance, over the sound of leaking from gutters and the occasional rat. Down town Jump City is not exactly a tourist attraction.

Red X slowly and deliberately turned on his heel to face the men. His masked face tilted in what the two Black Market dealers assumed was curiosity.

The other man continued, "The mob got tired of all their drug shipments gettin' stopped by those brats. Word started spreading last night. Anyone who brings Dimagio the body of a Titan gets a million. Bring in all five of 'em, he'll give ya ten million." The man nodded, his average features displaying how very much the trite information he relayed impressed him.

Behind his mask, Red X narrowed his eyes in contempt. He could spot an ignorant thug a mile away, and he could tell that this patron of his services, though apparently able to navigate the Black Market, had most likely never personally encountered the Titans, or any criminal or crime-fighter of even slight importance. This, Red X noted with distaste for the sloppiness of it all, was a man who could not hope to stay alive long in the criminal underworld. And X did not give a single damn about the man's inevitable demise in the poorly chosen profession. Rather than voice his scathing judgements of the man, he whistled. "That's quite a lot of money," he said with false enthusiasm.

The first man, who had a look of slightly more intelligence in his shadowed face, gained Red X's equal contempt when he said, "We just thought you might want in on it, since you've beaten them before. Everyone in town is gonna be pumping lead into those brats within a day. Good luck."

Without another word, the two distasteful men skulked away, quickly disappearing into the dark alleys of Jump's ugliest area. Red X teleported away.

Back in his own small apartment, the famous thief took off his mask and shook out his matted-down black hair. He collapsed on his coach and threw his commission on his coffee table.

A hit on the Teen Titans, eh? Well it was only a matter of time, after they busted all those drug shipments, before the mob would take extreme measures to get them out of their hair. The Titans had a habit of making themselves unpleasant to a lot of unsavory people.

Of course the idiots who requested his services would think he'd be interested. He was the only person that consistently beat the Titans and got away. Except Slade, but he's crazy, and no one likes to work with crazy people. Red X's track record meant that he could charge whatever he wanted and someone would pay it. He held the title of best thief on the West Coast. It _would_ be all of America, if it weren't for a certain cat-themed burglar out in Gotham City- though he knew a certain bat-themed hero still tried relentlessly to reform her, with occasional results.

Regardless, Red X did not want the Titans to die. What fun would stealing be if the only things between him and the inside of a vault were a metal door and some incompetent cops? You can't get a thrill if there is no chance of getting caught. Criminology 101.

Other crooks did not have such misgivings, however, and would go straight for a chance to land such serious money. Which meant that the Titans were walking, talking, crime-busting bullet magnets. And if a bullet actually made good, where would he get his kicks?

Red X wouldn't lie to himself; he held another certain interest when it came down to it. He could relate to Catwoman's inconstancy as a villain, when certain _factors_ were at play. There was, he would once have been ashamed to admit, a particular Titan who had caught his attention a few months ago when they battled during a simple heist of his. He was just trying to lift a highly guarded Baroque painting from a paranoid collector's vault. They had caught up to him on the collector's huge lawn when he had been making his escape.

The battle with the other four was as simple as always. He never even had to change strategies. They hardly ever learned, and their lack of adaptation was their downfall. The green one he stuck on the ground with goo; an electrically charged X brought down the robot; the red-head, though he considered flirting to piss off Bird Boy, got neatly and efficiently covered in X-shaped bindings and was reduced to rolling on the floor, struggling comically against them. The Boy Blunder he fought hand-to-hand, and he was on his way to pummeling the kid into the ground, until a black spark burned his wrist and interrupted their fight. Red X's hastily thrown binding hit its mark on Bird Boy a half-second later, as well as a net he tossed for extra security. Then the burglar turned to face the sorceress that he had never actually seen up close.

The girl had left her hood down for once, allowing him to see her face for the first time. X's face muscles relaxed in a jaw drop that almost had him drooling over her like a cartoon. Not that he hadn't seen prettier women in his life... but the superhero in front of him held an aura about her that seemed to form fit his own. To his reckless impulsiveness, she was all dignified thoughtfulness. To his addiction to adrenaline, she had graceful poise. He was playful and she was cunning. They weren't opposites, per se, but complimentary to each other. Red X could be called persistent to a fault, and he knew he would have to be to pursue her. And, god help him, he was going to pursue her, his mind forming strategies before even considering the futility of it.

She made the first move- not in a fun way, unfortunately- and telekinetically lifted a nearby streetlamp, trying to wrap it around him like a snake. He swiftly and predictably avoided it, teleporting behind her back just as the streetlamp tightened in a vice.

Gently binding her unsuspecting wrists together with a sticky X, he said suggestively, "Why don't you just wrap your arms around me, instead?"

She whirled, hands stuck behind her back, but nevertheless perfectly balanced. Swiftly, evident of training by a Bat, she jumped straight up and slipped her arms under her, knees bent and tucked up to her stomach for just a moment in midair, to bring her hands to her front. "Excuse me?" she asked incredulously, angrily, an unacknowledged blush tinting her clear, pale skin.

X smirked congenially, saying, "Aw, don't be like that, cutie."

"Cutie?" Raven repeated furiously, blush replaced with a flush of energy and indignation. With a black spark of her anger, the red restraint around her wrists broke and she took a basic fighting stance, managing very well to appear intimidating despite her petite stature. "I'm sorry, I think you're mistaking me for someone who would welcome your crude attentions. Azarath metrion-"

A large red X covered her mouth. Her hands went up to pull at it, and another X trapped her wrists together again. The villain approached her despite her baneful glare and intense struggles against his restraints. He took one of her trapped hands in his and kissed it with feigned gallantry, watching her flustered, indigo eyes, and parted, "Till next time, babe." By the movement of his mask she thought he winked.

As he flipped and dodged a birdarang a safe distance to teleport away, X glanced back and saw Bird Boy, finally free from his restraints, checking on her as her powers removed the Xes on her wrist and mouth- which she was able to do without speaking now that she could concentrate. X snarled at the boy as he pressed the central button on his belt.

The girl- woman, he corrected himself- fascinated him. Over and over he replayed the images of her blush at his flirtations, her flustered face at his kiss. It took almost no time after that for X's fascination to become a full blown, health-hazardous obsession. At first he just saved her for last in fights and exchanged some witty banter, incorrigibly flirting and trying to pull her out of her shell and into his courting game. He made her mad a lot. Sometimes she blushed at his flattery. Once, he would have sworn she smiled. He got a kick out of drawing out her emotions, even if she only showed him fury; he could tell, way deep down, she was intrigued by him as well.

That amusement was enough for a while. Then he began feeling a pull, like he really needed to see her, which highly disturbed him; he'd never felt anything like that before. Afraid it was a trap and she was in his head or something, he ignored the feeling for over a week. But after a few weeks and a lull in jobs, giving him no opportunity to see her at work, he caved.

Titan Tower's security was, he would admit, very impressive, the best modern technology could do. But nothing he couldn't get through. He teleported onto the roof, shut down the outdoor sensors. Then he teleported back to the ground, hidden in shadows, and looked at the rooms with their lights still on at midnight. The bright room in the center of the T was the living room, he figured. And only one other room was still lit. With a smirk, he grappled up to that window, ready to see his dark bird still awake but alone in her room at night. He grabbed onto the ledge of the window and peeked into the room.

"Shit," he whispered as he nearly fell off the building. "Wrong bird, wrong bird, wrong bird," he chanted as he climbed by the fingertips over and away from Robin's window. Stupid Bird Boy, up pacing, researching him at this late hour. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he pulled himself up onto a ledge a window over from Robin's, glad to be at least out of sight of his obsessive nemesis. But where was Raven?

Lazily, X lolled his head to the side and aimlessly peered in the window on whose ledge he stood. With a start he realized that it was _her_ window. What inexplicable luck, he smirked and looked at her. Though he had thought she would still be awake at this time, she was fast asleep, a book open beside her, several candles which had lit the room burnt or burning themselves out. X stood on the windowsill for half an hour watching her sleep. It crossed his mind that his actions were stalkerish, and his desire for this Titan was totally forbidden. But that night, he didn't care. He just watched her steady breathing, wondered what book shared her bed, mused on the nature of hero-villain relationships.

When he returned home that night, he decided he would never do anything so creepy again. But a week later he returned to her window. And every week after that.

Until now. The Titans would have no way of knowing about the new threat presented by the high price on their heads. And they would charge blindly into a fight with killers out for their blood, because they never seemed to care about their own lives as much as those of citizens.

For the sake of his amusement, and his _interest_ in their Dark Bird, the Titans couldn't get killed.

He had to warn them. So help him, for the sake of selfishness, he had to do something that appeared _good_. He'd done work for the side of good a few times recently: helped the Titans defeat Chang, helped Bird Boy get his case back from Ding Dong Daddy. It was occurring too often and he got nothing back, especially since he lost his belt the first time- that _little_ bit of satisfaction didn't count as a reward. So what if he still had a conscience?

What could he get out of this situation to make it really worth the possible sacrifice of his villain status, and the risk of compromising his identity?

Lightbulb. Red X smiled, a smirk full of mischief and suggestion. Oh, this would totally be worth it.

* * *

In her never-ending quest to uncover the deepest facets of Earth culture, Starfire announced that the team would be going to a fireworks display that evening. She didn't ask, but declared, and Robin, leader of their band of misfits, was completely on board with the idea. The city's annual Founder's Day celebrations always ended with fireworks. Robin saw it as their obligation to attend to support the city that had yet to issue warrants for their arrests.

That was enough cause to thank a city, as most vigilantes would know.

"Consider it a night off to celebrate our third major drug bust this month," Robin said to the team's reluctant empath.

Raven countered cuttingly, "If it's a night _off_, then why can't I spend it doing what I _want_?"

Her leader rolled his eyes as Starfire sweetly asked, "Please accompany us, Raven? We do not want to leave you out of such friendly activities."

Raven's sarcastic response got cut off by Robin, who said, "The whole team is required to go, and that's an order."

Much to the credit of Robin's gumption, and his extensive time working under Batman, he did not shrink at his second-in-command's glare and scowl. So, no matter how little she wanted to go, yet again Raven was roped into a 'team bonding activity.'

The heroes arrived at five in the afternoon at the park in order to find a good spot. Cyborg wanted to barbecue, Beast Boy wanted to find some girls to flirt with, and Starfire and Robin wanted to spend some time together. Raven wanted to leave. She found it quite unfair that only she did not get what she wanted.

Raven spent the last couple of hours of sunlight reading a book. Heavy and leather-bound, it looked like a creepy old spell book, but it was really a classic love novel. She was a romantic just like any other young girl. Sue her.

As the sun set, the team grouped at their table to eat Cyborg's feast. They all ignored Beast Boy's protests that they were eating his brothers and sisters. When they finished eating, Raven swept up the remains into a nearby garbage, and they sat together to watch the show.

"What's the time?" Robin asked.

"It's eight. Show should be starting any second now," Cyborg informed him.

True to his prediction, they heard loud shots seconds later. Bright lights exploded in the night sky, amusing everyone, especially Starfire, who cooed in innocent wonder. Raven's face broke into a very small smile of indulgence at seeing her friend so intrigued by explosives. Did she not notice that Robin used the same materials in battle every day? She shook her head like a mother when her children did something funny.

About ten feet away, leaning unnoticed against a tree, Red X split his attention between the Titans and the surrounding crowd. He didn't spare the fireworks a glance.

The moment he saw a brutish man, out of place in the crowd of families, sitting alone at a picnic table, pull out a gun and aim it at the unsuspecting group of teen heroes, he threw a fist-sized rock at the man's head. He didn't want any evidence that he had been there, so he refrained from using any of his suit's weaponry. The stone hit the would-be assassin's head dead on, knocking him out. But Red X knew that there had to be more goons in the crowd. The chance was too perfect to pass up: the Titans had been sitting ducks here for hours, and now they were unsuspecting targets, in the dark, in the middle of a crowd of innocent bystanders, with fireworks covering the sounds of gunfire. Anyone with half a brain, a gun, and a desire to kill the Titans would be here.

As soon as the rock left his hand, Red X sprinted towards the heroes. Raven sat farthest back from the group, conveniently closest to him. He silently rushed to the empath, and covered her mouth with his hand as he knelt behind her.

Raven's muffled protests didn't reach her friends' ears. She looked up into the face of her assailant and saw the skull mask of Red X. Her protests doubled under his hand.

"You need to put up a shield around your friends. People are trying to kill you," he said urgently.

Raven glared at him as his head swiveled, eyes searching the crowd. Suddenly he yanked her whole body back into his and two bullets whizzed past her face, the noise from the guns indistinguishable from the sounds of fireworks. Without pause for a second thought, Raven threw up an immense wall of black soul-self around the six of them. Several bullets that would have killed her friends slammed sinisterly into her shield milliseconds after she had erected it. A fearful shudder ran down the half-demon's spine at the possibilities, had she not been warned.

As the other four Titans turned, finally alerted to Raven's distress upon the appearance of her shield around them, all they saw was their friend, with terror in her usually expressionless eyes, in the arms of their enemy, and they were ready to fight, powers and weapons brandishing.

Red X's hand left Raven's face as both his hands flew in a stop gesture. Once released from his grip, Raven picked herself up from where she had been pulled onto his chest, turned to face him, and, with venom in her voice, asked, "What's going on?"

"I'll tell you once we're not under fire, so do your teleporting thing and get us out of this park," he answered in a rush.

"We can't leave! There are men with guns shooting up a public park!" Raven protested.

"You can't fight them here, there are too many people. They're only after you five, once you leave they'll stop shooting, so let's go!" he nearly shouted.

Raven glared, but saw his logic. With a chant and a swirl of chilling blackness, Raven transported all six teenagers to the living room of Titan's Tower.

Before he could take a breath, Red X was pinned to the couch by the same black powers. Raven stood above him and demanded, "Explain, now."

Red X smirked, back to his usual personality once they escaped the immediate danger. "Ya know, usually I'm not into bondage, but for you, babe-"

"Shut up," Robin growled. He stepped up beside Raven and asked her in his best serious but not angry leader-voice, "What happened back there?"

She shook her head, "I'm not sure. He," she nodded toward Red X still trapped on the couch, "came up behind me, covered my mouth and told me to put a shield up. A couple of bullets nearly hit me, so I did what he said. You know from there."

"Alright," Robin prompted his enemy, "you should start explaining now."

X rolled his eyes under his mask. Bird Boy is no fun.

"A hit has been put out on the Titans," he stated with boredom.

The Titans silently digested the news. They stood straighter, as if it would make them prepared for this new challenge.

Looking around at her tense friends with confusion, Starfire did not want to interrupt their thoughts because of her own ignorance of the term X had used. However, seeing her face, Raven answered the unspoken question, "It means that someone is offering money to anyone who kills us, Star."

"Oh," the Tamaranean murmured, furrowing her brows in horror and worry.

The brief exchange shook their teammates out of their tense thoughts. Scratching his head as he looked at the masked thief, Beast Boy queried, "So, um, dude, what are our heads worth?"

"A million per Titan, but ten if someone gets all five of you," he answered, adding sarcastically, "You should be flattered, that's damn good money. They whole city's gonna be gunning for you."

"Why are you telling us this?" Raven demanded. X happily turned his eye back to the pretty empath.

"Well, babe-"

"Don't call me that," she interrupted monotonously.

He shrugged. "Whatever you say, sunshine." His tone challenged her, but she refused to play his game. She looked down at him with apparent callousness, but her own anger gave her away as the restraints around X's abdomen tightened. Though short of breath, the cocky villain smiled.

"Get back to why you're telling us this," Robin demanded. Seeing his enemy in his base of operations made him angrier every minute.

"You really need to lighten up, Chuckles," Red X mocked, making Robin growl fiercely. "But that's a part of your charm: how completely uptight you are. And personally, I want you guys to stick around. You may not be _much_ of a challenge, but stealing would be no fun at _all_ if you five weren't there trying your damnedest to stop me."

"So you want us alive to make stealing fun for you?" Cyborg asked angrily, cybernetic fists clenching like they wanted to wrap around X's throat.

"Mostly, yeah. Did you think I was just being altruistic?" Red X snorted. "Although," he added thoughtfully, looking at Raven, "I would be heartbroken if Sunshine over there got killed before I could ask her on a date." The Titans could see X smirk mischievously under his mask.

Raven scowled at the thief. So he was doing this to continue his recent infuriating hobby of flirting with her?

"Sunshine, there's no need to hide your love for me in front of your friends. They'll find out sooner or later," Red X drawled confidently. Raven extended a tendril of dark power and smacked the cocky thief upside the head. "Ow," he muttered, "that hurts, Sweetheart. That hurt me right here." He gestured at his heart as best he could with his chin, since his arms were still trapped in Raven's restraints.

Raven rolled her eyes, but realized that the moron would never shut up, so in the interest of time she chose to let him have the last word.

"While we've got him here," Robin spoke with more than a hint of satisfaction, "take off his mask."

X's eyes widened. Of course he had imagined this eventuality when he decided to give the Titans this tip off, but he had kind of thought that the Boy Blunder would have more decency than that after he warned them about the hit and saved their heroic hides- or at least that he would have the ability to book it before they had the chance to unmask him. He struggled futilely against Ravens powers as Cyborg stepped up to obey his leader's commands.

"Stop."

The commanding voice came from, of all places, Raven. Cyborg paused and looked at her in confusion as Robin asked, "What? Why wouldn't we unmask him? He's a criminal, we can't just let him go!"

"Robin, he came to us with a warning. His motives may be selfish, but that doesn't change the fact that he saved my life today, as well as Beast Boy's and yours. Had he not warned me in time, my shield would not have stopped the bullets aimed straight at your unsuspecting heads," Raven informed them seriously. Her monotone held some slight anger and persuasion in it. She shocked Red X, who had never heard her say so much all at once. She normally preferred short, digging quips. He wanted to make a comment, but knew the best he could do for his secret identity now was to keep quiet.

Beast Boy looked shocked and a little scared at how close he had come to death, but Robin stood firm, angry at the defiance of his second-in-command.

"That does not change the fact that we as crime fighters have a duty to charge him for his crimes and prevent him from committing more," the leader argued.

The cool empath raised a smug eyebrow as she dropped a bomb on him, "Technically, O Wise Leader, since we have not witnessed him committing a crime today, and since he wears a mask, making it impossible to positively identify whoever we are speaking to as the same man who stole your suit and robbed almost every bank and museum in town, you have nothing to charge him with, and you can't arrest him."

Robin almost boiled with anger. He wanted to scream at her, but he knew she was right. Slowly, he worked to calm himself. Raven sensed his efforts, and felt proud of her leader for getting the better of his more rash side.

Deciding to grace him with a truce, Raven extended a proverbial olive branch, offering, "You know, he may be able to help us, too. He has connections we don't, and if he is willing to cooperate, I'm sure we can think of a way to solve this issue quickly."

Robin nodded, accepting her suggestion as the peace offering and apology that it was. He knew that Raven did not like to question his leadership unless she felt he was in danger of getting out of control. She tried to keep him and the team balanced, which was the main reason, along with her strategic skills and intelligence, that he had made her his second-in-command.

With silent steps of his steel-toed boots Robin approached his nemesis once more. "So how about it, Red X? Will you help us take care of this quickly?" he asked.

X looked at the Titans: Cyborg angry, Beast Boy and Starfire observing and on guard, Raven cold, and Boy Blunder uptight and serious as ever. And in the middle, he still sat trapped on their couch. This still had the potential to end very badly if he did not cooperate.

"How could I refuse?" he asked, only half sarcastically.

* * *

Raven walked slowly and serenely back to her bedroom with her cup of herbal tea. Under her arm she held a book, which she had read on the couch until she decided to have her last cup of tea and retire. It was absurdly late, after the fireworks, the interrogation of X, followed by tactical planning with Robin and X, but she really wanted to relax with a quick chapter before bed. Starfire, Beast Boy and Cyborg had all gone to bed after the interrogation; Robin insisted they rest, since he and Raven generally did all the strategics anyway. Cyborg usually helped, but he needed to charge.

When she reached her bedroom door she started punching in her key code, until a voice behind her made her jump.

"Hey beautiful."

Raven dropped her book in surprise and narrowly escaped spilling her tea. Angrily, she turned to face Red X, who continued talking.

"I knew you cared, Sunshine, but who'd have guessed you'd go to such lengths to protect me?" he joked. Raven realized that he had turned off the voice distorter in his mask. His voice was smooth and sexy.

Raven sighed, all hopes of peacefully going to sleep blown out of the water. Rolling her eyes, she asked, "I thought Robin locked you in a guest room for the night?" Her leader, though he had agreed to let X help them without arresting or unmasking him, did not want X to leave the Tower, or roam the Tower unsupervised during the night. They would be putting their plan into action tomorrow, and did not want to have to hunt down the thief beforehand. They didn't trust him, not really.

X snorted at the question. "You think I don't know how to get past the robot's security? You think very little of me, Sunshine. But don't worry, Sweet Cheeks, I won't leave you." He winked, or at least it looked like it through the mask.

Raven, surprisingly not angry, sighed in a resigned, 'why must I put up with this?' sort of way, and asked, "What's with the nicknames, Red X?"

Under his mask the infamous thief smirked. "Aw, c'mon babe, I just genuinely like you," he said, with feigned innocence and open, relaxed body language.

Raven laughed softly, honestly amused. "X, I don't think you know how to genuinely _anything_," she quipped playfully.

X stepped up beside Raven and leaned against the edge of her doorway. Slowly, Raven mirrored him on the other edge of the doorway.

"I genuinely saved your life today," he said, more seriously than she had ever heard him.

"Which I appreciate; but you did it for personal gain," she countered matter-of-factly.

"No, Sunshine, I saved the _others_ for personal gain. _You_ I didn't want to see get hurt," he said quietly.

"Why is that?" she asked. What interest could she hold for this man, besides being a Titan for him to fight?

"Hey, since I saved your life today," he diverted the conversation, joking once more, all seriousness lost, "doesn't that entitle me to a kiss from the beautiful damsel?"

Red X leaned towards Raven and put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up. She shook him off and smirked a little.

"I'm not out of danger yet. There's still a price on my head, remember. Maybe once Dimagio is in jail… _Maybe_," she said. Red X's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline in his shock. Using his distraction, Raven punched her key code into the pad on the wall next to her and walked into her room.

Before her door slid shut, Raven heard X call, "I'm gonna hold you to that, Sunshine!"

In the peace and quiet of her dark bedroom, Raven put her head in her hands and shook it like the fool she was, wondering what in the universe had tempted her to flirt with a criminal. With a huge sigh of exhaustion she decided she was sleep deprived, and laid down on her bed to get some rest.

* * *

COMING SOON IN PART TWO OF TWO:

"Here's the deal, Dimagio," Red X's mechanical voice drawled, "I'm going to take out the other four Titans for you, and you're going to pay me the ten million. So you see, there's no need for anyone else to be going after my targets and getting in my way. So how about you call off the hit and just make it my commission?"

Dimagio lounged easily in his leather office chair. He looked at the purple-haired, bloody corpse on his mahogany desk and smiled. Standing, he said confidently to the masked man before him, "Well you obviously have the skill to do it. So what's wrong with a little competition?"

Red X's demeanor suddenly filled with fury, and an X-blade flew past Dimagio's face and lodged itself deep into the white-painted wall beside him. X growled, "Because if some stupid thug shoots a lucky bullet, I'm out more than half my money. So I suggest you take my offer. No one else has the skill to do it anyway. Me, I can give you a satisfaction guarantee."

Under his mask, X smirked at the scared eyes in Dimagio's rapidly nodding head.

_All according to plan,_ X thought.

* * *

**A/N:** **To Do List: 1) Epilogue of 'Enchanted Mirrors' (formerly known as Un Nouveau Conte de Fees). 2) New chapter of my poorly neglected baby,'Fully Alive.' 3) Final chapter of this.**

**I have free time again, so these should be coming at you soon. Keep up with me and my fics, and I promise I won't disappoint. **

**Review, and make my week, 'cause I just bombed AP Physics.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own jack all of this. Characters and locations are owned by Warner Bros. I'm using them for entertainment only, not profit.

Thanks to all the wonderful reviewers of chapter 1. Here's hoping this exceeds your expectations.

And so finally, ladies and gentlemen...

* * *

**A Price On Your Head, Chapter Two**

* * *

"Cyborg, do you have a visual in Dimagio's office?" Robin's voice gruffly buzzed out of the teen hero's arm-communicator.

"Yeah, Rob. Camera's in place. The nanobot worked like a charm, walked straight under the door and into a corner. Picture is good, audio too," Cyborg told his leader. He sounded far more serious than usual.

"Are you sure Dimagio and his guards are the only ones on his floor?"

"Positive. No civilians are in or near Dimagio's apartment."

"And the loop for the security cameras are ready?"

"The loop will start right before Star and BB go in."

"Are you in place on the floor above?"

"Affirmative. Something goes wrong in there, I can be in through the ceiling in under ten seconds," Cyborg confirmed into his arm. He had grappled up through a window about an hour previously. With careful planning from the half-robot, no one noticed him enter the fifteenth-story window.

"Good. Starfire, Beast Boy, are you two ready?" Robin checked.

"Yes, Robin. We are waiting on the roof of the building of apartments, as you commanded," Starfire responded through her discrete earpiece communicator, voice low to avoid being heard by the overly-muscled doorman, despite him being nearly two hundred feet below. Next to her a green English pointer dog morphed into a green boy in a purple jump suit.

"Chill Rob, everything is gonna go as planned," Beast Boy whispered into his own earpiece, uncharacteristically mellow.

"I know, Beast Boy. Everyone remain in position until I give the signal," Robin commanded his team.

"Gotcha."

"Sure thing."

"Yes, Robin."

"Good. Robin out."

The link went silent. For a few minutes, nothing moved. Then, a single headlight broke the darkness of the lonely business street and grew larger, until they could make out a black and red motorcycle. The growling of the engine rumbled through the night's silence, and tension grew in the shoulders of the two Titans in place on the roof of the building.

"Robin?" Starfire whispered into her comm link.

"Star, stay quiet. Red X is incoming," Robin ordered, almost angrily.

"But Robin, I was thinking... Do you think Red X would really_ kill_ Raven? I simply _cannot_ believe that he would," the generously kind alien asked.

"I don't know, Star. I never used to think of him as a killer. But then again, we don't know him. Now, quiet," the leader answered his teammate. "Cyborg, I'm on my way up to your position."

"I read you," Cyborg answered, and all fell silent.

Red X's bike stopped before the building and he shut down the machine. As he dismounted, the watching pair of heroes saw a previously unnoticed body slumped on his back. They watched as he carelessly tossed it over his black-clad shoulder. The purple-haired body did not react at all. It did not appear to be breathing.

Red X approached the door, only to be stopped by the muscled and intimidating doorman.

"Are you a resident of this apartment building?" the man asked.

Red X put his free fist on his hip and rolled his eyes impatiently. "No. I'm here to see Mr. Dimagio."

"On what business?"

The man's thickness astounded X, who said, "Can you see the dead Titan on my shoulder? I'm pretty sure he'll see me, so let me through."

Though the doorman looked angry at X's condescension, he had his orders. Red X entered the building. Starfire, leader of her and Beast Boy's mission, informed Robin of his movements.

"Thank you Star. You and Beast Boy get ready to head in at my word. We're taking this guy down," Robin answered grimly as he joined Cyborg through the window via grappling hook. He shook out his wind-mussed black hair, moved to stand at attention in front of Cyborg's surveillance screens, and waited.

* * *

Red X entered the empty elevator. As the doors closed he sighed with relief. He put his load on the floor, gently sitting her on the carpet. It had seriously pissed him off to allow a dumb thug at the lobby desk check that she was dead. He found no breath or pulse. He had also patted him down to ensure that he wasn't concealing a gun. He had had to choke down a laugh at that. With all the weapons he carried, a gun was the least of their worries.

Raven opened her eyes.

"You know," Raven said, voice conveying that she didn't bat an eyelash at playing possum, "Just because I can't hit you now doesn't mean I won't get you back for grabbing my ass."

X smirked at her blood-covered face. He mimed the way he held her, carting her over his shoulder with his right hand over where her butt would be. "It's the easiest way to carry you, love."

"'Love?' That's a new one," she remarked.

"Just conveying how serious I am about you," he returned.

"Oh, so now this is a courtship? Hm... How should I respond to that?" She thought aloud, putting a finger thoughtfully to her chin and coming away with dried fake blood. She stared down at it with perfect apathy.

He laughed. "By kissing me," he said with a wag of his eyebrows.

"Ah, no," Raven chuckled as well. The laugh surprised X, but that was the fun in talking with her: how often she surprised him.

"Shame," he said lightly. He smiled genuinely at her. She turned her head away in response and looked dead again. The elevator dinged and the door opened to the fifteenth floor, the location of Nicola Dimagio's apartment and office, where half the crime in the city was planned.

"Alright. Let's wreck this guy, baby," Red X said, seemingly to himself, as he picked up her limp body again. He made sure to squeeze her ass. She couldn't react. He smirked.

Two men stood guard beside the elevator. Two men stood guard outside of the door to the only apartment on the floor. X presented them with Raven's body, and they also checked for a pulse- but, thanks to Raven's odd demon powers, she could tweak their senses enough to convince them she was without a pulse and cold. They allowed him into the apartment, and a man inside the door led X to Dimagio's office, passing by an open door to a room full of crooks and criminals. Each one was over six foot and all muscle. X could take on every single one of them. At the same time.

Raven nearly choked on the fumes from his hot head. She could nearly smell his ego with her empathy.

X strutted down the hallway until he came to a mahogany door that just oozed importance.

The large suited black man who had led X to the door held his meaty hand in front of X's chest to stop him entering the office. The man opened the door and informed Dimagio that Red X had arrived.

The thug moved aside shortly, and X entered the room.

* * *

"He's clear. Starfire, Beast Boy, go," Robin commanded into his T-Comp.

Starfire's voice responded through the link, "Yes, Robin."

Robin observed from the window as his two teammates ducked along a wall, flying down from the roof- Beast Boy in the form of a pigeon- until Starfire was behind the doorman, and silently took him down. They hid the limp body quickly, and entered the building with the keys they took off of him.

In under twenty seconds from Robin's 'Go,' they were in.

* * *

"Mr. Red X, what a delight it is to meet you, and especially under such," Dimagio gestured at the body that X had unceremoniously dropped on his desk, "wonderful circumstances," he finished.

"The pleasure is all mine. Now, Mr. Dimagio, I believe we should discuss my reward. I'm going to cut you a deal, and you're going to take it," X declared evenly, sitting casually into a chair.

* * *

Starfire led the way into the building, as her golden alien skin was fairly near bulletproof. The door opened silently and she entered the granite lobby just as quietly, ducking swiftly into an alcove in the wall. She knew she had to keep their entrance to the building undetected, so as not to disturb X's 'negotiations', so she sweeped the room with her eyes, and to her delight, she found only one man at the desk.

Not entirely sure if the man was truly a building employee or the first line of the mob's defense, Starfire decided to check. Boldly as her personality, she walked forward into the man's line of vision, allowing her heels to clack on the stone floor. The man looked up.

At the sight of the famous hero, the man's eyes bugged out of his head. He reached for the gun at his hip faster than Starfire would have expected. Not afraid of the gunfire as much as the noise it would make, the alien used her eyebeams to melt the pistol right out of the criminal's hand. Faster than a blink, she flew forwards and knocked him unconscious with a solid punch.

Beast Boy ran in from where he had waited at the door.

"Aw man," he whined. "How come I couldn't do that?"

"Because you are not Tameranean," his mission partner answered simply.

"No," he protested, "I mean, I didn't get to do anything!"

Starfire bound the unconscious man with ropes and stowed him below the desk, out of prying eyes. "It was expedient this way, yes? Our mission has barely commenced, my friend. We must now go up to the floor of the fifteenth and clear out all of Dimagio's guardians without his noticing. That shall be most challenging, and will require that you 'kick the butt' as you like to say."

Beast Boy grinned in remembrance, excited for his task. "Come on, then, let's go!"

* * *

Dimagio looked surprised at X's forwardness. He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Now, now, X- can I call you X?- why rush right into business? You'll get the money I promised, but first, have a scotch with me." The man's voice slid like oil and honey, like an experienced negotiator, like a politician. X trusted him less and less with every word.

"I'd really rather not," X refused. Dimagio kept up his slimy smile. Red X grimaced, hidden by his mask. He stood and crossed his arms, exuding confidence, attempting to wordlessly intimidate the criminal overlord before him.

"Here's the deal, Dimagio," Red X's mechanical voice drawled, "I'm going to take out the other four Titans for you, and you're going to pay me the ten million. So you see, there's no need for anyone else to be going after my targets and getting in my way. So how about you call off the hit and just make it my commission?"

Dimagio lounged easily in his leather office chair. He looked at the purple-haired, bloody corpse on his mahogany desk and smiled. Standing, he said confidently to the masked man before him, "Well you obviously have the skill to do it. So what's wrong with a little competition?"

Red X's demeanor suddenly filled with fury, and an X-blade flew past Dimagio's face and lodged itself deep into the white-painted wall beside him. X growled, "Because if some stupid thug shoots a lucky bullet, I'm out more than half my money. So I suggest you take my offer. No one else has the skill to do it anyway. Me, I can give you a satisfaction guarantee."

Under his mask, X smirked at the nervousness in Dimagio's eyes.

All according to plan, X thought.

* * *

Starfire headed towards the elevators and pressed the call button.

"Why are we taking the elevator?" her green friend asked.

"It will look less suspicious, and be quieter, than us smashing in through the windows or flying up the shaft and forcing the doors open," she answered logically.

Beast Boy grumbled nonetheless, "But that's no fun..."

Starfire ignored Beast Boy's whining, and moved to contact Robin. Beast Boy interrupted, "Hey, Star, can I call it in?"

"You are welcome to," she answered after a moment's thought.

"Sweet! Hey, Rob, thanks to us, the lobby is now clear," he said into his comm.

The voice of their leader answered, "Good, then proceed to Dimagio's floor. _Make sure_ to be undetected. We don't want to interrupt X's... _talk_. Now, _go_."

* * *

Dimagio coughed to cover his initial reaction, and regained his cool facade, smiling at X again. With some effort he yanked he X-knife out of the wall and asked the masked thief, "Do you think I am so easily intimidated? Do you think one knife in the wall will make me cave to your demands?" He smirked and tossed the X-shaped knife at the floor near X's feet. "A man like me, a man who has led a criminal empire for decades, does not get there being frighted of a few threats."

X smiled a bit on the inside, but didn't let anything show through body language. Now that they could definitively pin Dimagio as the leader of organized crime in Jump City, all he needed to do was distract him while the two biggest idiots on the Titans cleared out Dimagio's muscle. The kids wanted a clean arrest, and plenty of people to interrogate. And once they had Dimagio and his admission on tape, the police could search Dimagio's files and pin enough on him to lock him and half of his men away.

"Alright," X said, internally planning his every step, "In that case, how about we discuss it like civilized men. I'll tell you why you should hire me out, and then you'll do it, I assure you."

Dimagio sat back in his chair. "Then by all means, X: impress me."

* * *

With a raised eyebrow, Beast Boy watched as Starfire hummed along with the elevator music, contentedly watching the numbers rise until they reached three and the lift slowed.

With a cheerful ding, the doors of the elevator opened.

The two men beside the elevator hesitated in their reaction, and that was all the opening that the Titans needed. As the mobsters turned to look at the elevator's inhabitants, said inhabitants stepped out and rendered them unconscious by using pressure points.

While the first two mobsters fell limply to the floor, Starfire flew forward to stop one of the other guards, only a few feet away at the door to the apartment, from drawing a gun. She wrestled with the man, who definitely spent time at the gym, arms locked in a battle of strength, but eventually got the better of him by kneeing him in the stomach, following up with an elbow to the skull.

Beast Boy meanwhile rushed forward to take the second man out. Limited in transformations to quiet animals, he shifted into a Boa Constrictor, wrapping himself around the large criminal until he passed out. Beast Boy quickly released him, and shifted back to himself.

* * *

"Is it true that you have offered to pay anyone who brought you the body of a dead Titan one million dollars as a reward?" X asked straight out. He figured the kids would appreciate having that on tape.

Dimagio narrowed his eyes at the thief before him. "Yes, I have."

"Or, if someone brought you all five Titans, you would pay them ten million dollars as a reward?" X added.

"Yes, that was the deal. I want the Titans dead, what else could I do?" Dimagio said.

Raising his hands innocently, X said, "Nothing, I don't fault you for that. When did news of that start spreading? Two, three days ago? And now, on your desk, you have your very own dead Titan. Arguably the most powerful one. I'd call that some results, wouldn't you?" X pitched like an expert salesman.

Dimagio smiled again down at Raven's body. He told X, "Yes, I am very pleased by this. And I will pay you your million dollar reward."

"Oh, but I don't just want a million, I want the whole ten," X smirked.

"Then kill all five Titans," Dimagio countered.

"I intend to, but that will prove difficult with a bunch of gun-totting morons in my way."

"All the criminals in this town work for me. Now, I know you wouldn't call my employees morons, would you?" Dimagio asked, falsely polite.

X thought about that. His answer could bring the conversation two ways. He could continue the polite path and just keep the crime-boss talking, or he could finish what he started with the X-blade in the wall, and just piss Dimagio off.

X smirked so boldly he expected Dimagio to see it through the skull mask.

* * *

Starfire and Beast Boy stood in front of the door to Dimagio's apartment. Starfire asked into her comm link, "Cyborg, have you disabled the security systems in the doors?"

When she received the affirmative, Starfire grabbed the doorknob. The door required a card-key, but she just used brute strength to turn the doorknob until the lock broke.

A moment before they entered, she looked at her partner and said, "Remember to go for their throats."

Beast Boy nodded. Starfire opened the door and they rushed in.

They first room they entered was a sitting room. A sole guard leaned against the opposite wall, looking bored and half-asleep. He hadn't noticed the door open, and Starfire used that to her advantage as she quickly leapt forward and elbowed the man in the throat, preventing him for yelling, an giving her a chance to knock him out before he could attack. She took it, hitting him over the head, and letting him fall limply to the floor.

The two Titans repeated the procedure into a hallway with three guards, hitting them in the throats and knocking away their guns before rapidly rendering them unconcious. Then they entered a meeting room where six men sat around a wood table, playing cards and drinking.

Outnumbered but fast and sober, the Titans knocked out two drunk mobsters before the other four realized what was happening. As Starfire knocked out another man, Beast Boy turned into an octopus, using his many limbs to choke two men while keeping their arms from reaching their guns. With his octopus eyes, he saw a man aim a gun at Starfire's back.

Desperate to keep the man from injuring his friend and alerting anyone remaining on the floor to their presence, Beast Boy morphed into a cheetah and leapt at the man, not mauling him, but knocking him forcibly to the ground and making him wet his pants in fear. Morphing once more, Beast Boy punched the man in the face as a gorilla.

The green young man turned to his friend to see her looking at him with pride. He grinned back.

"Come," she said, "I believe that there are only two men remaining, standing guard outside of the office where Dimagio and the Red X talk."

* * *

"Hate to be the one to tell you this, Dimagio, but _most_ of this town's criminals don't work for you, so get your head out of your ass," X boldly declared. He nearly laughed out loud when Dimagio's face went red. "The only ones that _do_ actually work for you, and stay loyal, because I know for damn sure many of them don't, are morons. And you know McArthur said about the General only being as good as his troops."

For the first time that night, Robin made use of the comm connection in X's mask and asked him suspiciously, "X, what are you doing? If you screw this up to have a little fun-"

X pressed a button on the side of his mask, and cut Robin off.

Meanwhile, Dimagio stood, hands flat on his desk, leaning towards the thief that had decided to make him an enemy. "How dare you insult me, and how dare you insult my men. If you think you're getting a cent from me, you're as crazy as people say."

That piqued X's interest. "People think I'm crazy?"

DImagio smirked, finally having the upper hand, and said, "Yeah. Only a guy with a few screws loose would be a criminal and help the Titans as much as you do. We all know about the times you've helped them, we know you play both sides. And no one likes it. It's too fishy. So you know what? Get out. You're gonna want to get out of town all together, because that hit on the Titans? Well, now it includes you too."

X tilted his head back and released his smooth, deep laugh, ruined by the voice distorter that made it mechanical. After a moment, he looked back at Dimagio and said, "Come on, Dimagio, you don't want to know which of your men have hired me to steal for them without your say-so? Do you want to know who asked me to steal from you? You want to talk playing both sides, do you want to know which of your men was going to give the police classified information on you before one of your guards shut him up? You seem to have a loyalty problem in your ranks, and you can't blame that on me."

Robin's angry voice chimed in again, "X, I don't know what you're doing, but Starfire and Beast Boy are taking out the last guards as we speak."

X nodded ambiguously, knowing Bird Boy would see it on the camera.

But now, Dimagio was furious.

"You wanna see loyalty?" Dimagio shouted. "I'll show you loyalty. Boys! Get in here and teach this thief a lesson!"

Dimagio's assured smirk floundered into a scowl when the two men outside his door failed to respond immediately. He stormed to his office door and slammed it open before X could stop it.

* * *

Starfire and Beast Boy found that the two men on Dimagio's personal detail were the largest and scariest mobsters they had ever seen.

But that didn't really matter because they had superpowers and the men didn't.

Hiding around a corner, out of the men's sight, Starfire relayed to Robin, "We are going to incapacitate the final guards now. Inform the Red X of our position, please."

There was a pause before Robin, answered, "Done."

Starfire counted down from three on her hands, and at her forward signal, she and Beast Boy leapt from their position to take the men out.

Starfire used her whole body, grabbing the man from behind, wrapping her powerful arms around his throat to block his airways and silence him, while her legs prevented his arms from reaching for his guns. She held on until he slumped.

Beast Boy had shot forward as a hummingbird, but had morphed into a gorilla just as he reached his mark. Using his ape arms, he grabbed the man around his torso, and pounded him in the head before he even had a chance to shout.

Over their own battle, the two heroes did not hear the shouting exchange within the room. Before they could react, the door was yanked open aggressively, and Starfire and Beast Boy looked up to see the head of the Jump City mob, shocked and fuming.

"Not working with the Titans, huh?" Dimagio said rhetorically. Faster than the heroes and the thief had expected from the man, Dimagio pulled two semi-automatic pistols from under his jacket and aimed one at Red X and one at Beast Boy. Without hesitation, he pulled both triggers.

Starfire, acting quickly, used her green eyebeams to blow up the gun the moment she saw it, before it fired. Dimagio screamed in pain, cradling his bloodied hand, but the bullet he had aimed at Red X was already headed on its trajectory. X didn't have time to move.

He tried to jump out of the bullet's path, but he knew it was futile. The sometimes-villain squinted in readiness for the pain. Before it came, though, he was saved by a black energy shield. Once the bullet was stopped, the black energy seemed to come alive, morphing into a clawlike hand, and grabbed the other gun from the already incapacitated criminal. The hand squeezed, and dropped a metallic lump that had once been a weapon.

Red X looked up at the scene, shocked at his proximity to death. He looked over at his savior, and saw, as he expected, Raven floating in front of the desk where she had lain prone for so long. Her body was tensed perfectly straight, except for her arms, which crossed at the forearms. The backs of her hands stayed parallel to each other, leaving a space between them, where sparks of black energy surged from. Her white, glowing eyes shone brighter than the lamps in the room. Dimagio, holding onto his bleeding hand, cowered in fear from the menacing half-demon levitating above him.

As the terrified mobster cringed backwards, Starfire approached him and cuffed him.

"Nicola Dimagio, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit first degree murder," Starfire declared, proud that she could finally remember the Miranda Rights that Robin had worked so long to teach her. "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in the court of law."

X stopped listening to the redhead read the gangster his rights, and turned back to Raven, who had relaxed and floated back down to the ground. As the white glow of her eyes ceased and returned to the purple he had grown fond of, X smiled at the hero.

She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing," he denied.

Raven's eyes narrowed. "You do realize that now you owe me for saving your identity _and_ your life, don't you?"

X tilted his head flirtatiously. "Just tell me how you want me to," he took a step closer to her, "repay you, Sunshine."

"In your dreams."

"Every night. Speaking of which-"

Red X and Raven's banter was interrupted as Robin and Cyborg swung into the office from the window. Robin ignored X and went straight to see to Dimagio, still bitter that he had needed his enemy to save his team, but Cyborg reached out his hand to shake X's. While the shook hands respectfully and gratefully, X smiled at the tin man. Maybe not all heroes were bad.

X looked at Raven, lounging against Dimagio's desk, occassionally glancing up at him from under her eyelashes.

Yeah, not all heroes were bad.

* * *

Later that night, the Titans had filled out more paperwork and made more statements than they ever wanted to think about again, but they were satisfied that their efforts would pay off and keep Dimagio in jail for a good long time. Tomorrow would begin the interrogations of Dimagio's men and the searches of his papers and computer files. They would hopefully find out who Dimagio's connections were in the drug and ammunition trades and put a stop to them at their sources. All in all, their week was still busy, but it would pay off tenfold if they could stop mob activity in the city, at least for a while.

Raven walked into her room, looking forward to changing into something comfortable and going to bed. As the doors wooshed close behind her, she sensed another presence in her room. A familiar presence, at this point.

With a sigh she commanded, "Come on out X, I know you're there."

"That's not fair, Sunshine. How's a thief supposed to work if you can sense that he's there?"

"Well, considering that your occupation is very much illegal, I don't see how your working conditions are much concern," she answered, picking through a dresser to find a set of cotton pajamas that Starfire had given her for Christmas. Finally he stepped out the shadows in the corner her bookshelf made with her wall.

"That's some sexy sleepwear. You gonna model it for me?" X proposed.

Raven rolled her eyes and went into her bathroom. Once she had changed, brushed her teeth and hair and washed her face, she walked back into her room casually.

What she found upon entering was X laying nonchalantly on her bed. _On her bed._

It was enough to make any girl's thoughts a bit fuzzy, but Raven was ashamed at her distraction. The man wasn't even undressed and she was drooling over him. None of this showed on her face, though, and outwardly she rolled her eyes.

"Get off of my bed," she grumbled.

X, meanwhile, had been checking the bird out in her pajamas. He couldn't believe that she had changed into casual clothes around him. He studied the image of her in cotton pants and a tank top closely for future reference. For good measure, to make sure she knew what he thought, he wolf-whistled.

Raven surreptitiously moved one hand in a swiping gesture, and suddenly a black wave swiped X right off of Raven's bed. He didn't shout out, since he was a thief after all and had trained himself to be silent when under duress. But his arms flailed as he tried to catch himself, and Raven laughed openly at that image.

As he stood, yanking his suit straight and dusting his shoulders off, Raven stood with a hip cocked, proud of her victory. He couldn't let that stand.

He marched over to the half-demon, who stood her ground without flinching. In an act of defiance, stupidity, and lust, the thief known as Red X pulled the Titan called Raven by the waist until she bumped into his chest. She looked up at him, about to growl, but was stifled when he yanked off his face mask and covered her mouth with his.

Shocked at first, Raven didn't know if she should wait him out and punch him, or pull away immediately and punch him. Her eyes were wide open, looking into his domino mask that he'd had under his X-mask. But as she stood stock still, X continued to kiss her, letting her feel the obsession he had developed, and slowly, as his hands at her waist wrapped fully around her, she started to kiss him back.

Red X's tactics didn't change as she started to join the party, he just continued to hold her close and kiss her with an even pace. Eventually her arms went up to his shoulders, and she started to get impatient as he failed to take anything further. She growled, and X's still-covered eyes sparkled in delight. In a swift motion, he had pulled one of her legs up by the thigh to rest on his hip as he pulled her off of her feet and onto her large bed. Raven was completely at the mercy of the criminal above her, still melding his lips to hers. When she was down on the bed, his lips left her mouth and kissed a hot trail down her neck.

Raven's senses were a second behind, so it took her a moment to register when his lips left her skin. But when she realized, she opened her eyes and looked up at the man standing above her. She sat up, face not revealing her embarrassment, but his smirk didn't help the feeling.

"Told you I'd get that kiss for saving the damsel," X bragged. Raven's eyes rolled and avoided him.

"See you later, Babe," X said, then turned and walked towards her window, the window he'd looked in on her from on many occasions. Not that he'd ever admit that.

"Hey X," Raven called. He turned back to look at her. She help up his face mask. He had left it on the floor. He caught it when she threw it.

"You know," she mused, "You do still owe me for saving you twice."

Red X saw the underlying meaning. She wanted him to come back. "Don't worry, Babe. I'll... reimburse you," he promised. Somehow, he made a business term sound forbidden and dangerous.

Raven's eyes told him she wouldn't lock her windows.

* * *

A/N: Finally. Who knew that a two shot would take _so long_ to finish? God. This was really hard to write, honestly. I changed so many parts so many times. This chapter had been in the works since early July. Yeah, it took three months. I still don't think it's quite as good as Chapter 1, but I hope you enjoyed it, and weren't disappointed.

Please Review! Thank you for spending your time reading my writing!

Cheers


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